UFC and Bellator veteran Paul Daley
made a successful return to Cage Warriors Fighting Championship on
Saturday night, scoring a first-round technical knockout over
Lukasz
Chlewicki in the
CWFC 57 main event.

Though the Polish talent landed several solid counter punches
during his brief encounter with Daley (Pictured, file photo) at
Echo Arena in Liverpool, England, it was “Semtex” who delivered the
serious damage in the opening frame by grabbing a Thai plum and
working Chlewicki over with knees and elbows. Battered and bloodied
as the round came to a close, Chlewicki saw his night ended by the
cageside physician, who advised referee Marc Goddard
to stop the contest due to a laceration.

“We knew he was a scrappy, tough fighter, and some of the stuff we
were trying to do would be difficult,” said Daley during his
post-fight interview. “I knew if I could get him into the clinch I
could bring my elbows and knees into the fire, and it worked out
from there.”

The evening’s co-main event featured once-beaten English prospect
Danny
Roberts, who snatched a third-round submission from 12-fight
pro Henry
Fadipe in a back-and-forth 180-pound affair. Though Roberts
took the initiative early on with kicks to the legs and body,
Fadipe fired back with powerful strikes and forced the Brit to put
the fight on the floor.

Fadipe’s mat skills were on full display, however, as the Irishman
attempted a pair of kneebars and an arm-triangle choke off his
back. In the second frame, “Herculeez” opened a nasty cut over
Roberts’ eye, though the leaking wound only seemed to motivate the
prospect to increase his work rate. The final round saw Roberts
take total control of the bout, slamming his man to the canvas
before taking his back and sinking in a fight-ending rear-naked
choke.

Bantamweight talent Ronnie Mann
wasted little time in putting away 36-year-old Spaniard Jose Luis
Zapater, cracking the 27-fight pro with crisp jabs and
straights virtually at will in the bout’s opening minutes. Midway
through the frame, the ex-Bellator talent caught his foe with a
well-timed knee to the face and pounced for the finish, taking
Zapater to the ground and pounding away with punches and elbows to
force the stoppage at 3:19.

“I just thought I’d come out and be aggressive,” said Mann. “I
wanted to prove I can finish fights in the first round if need be.
I was willing to go wherever [the fight] went, but it just happened
to stay on the feet.”

Also on the evening’s main card, Frenchman Norman
Paraisy took home a unanimous decision over Leeroy
Barnes, despite receiving several stern warnings from the
referee for rule infringements. The seesaw middleweight affair
proceeded predictably, with Paraisy trying to time takedowns as
Barnes attempted to shuck them off and strike. While Barnes
appeared to connect a tad cleaner in the standup, he ultimately
could not stay off his back in any of three rounds. In the end,
Paraisy’s top control secured him the victory via scores of 30-27,
29-28 and 29-28.

English welterweight Ali Arish
extended his current winning streak to nine fights in his main-card
confrontation with Jack Mason,
taking a unanimous verdict from his countryman after 15 hard-fought
minutes. Arish made his game plan known in the early going, dumping
Mason to the mat in an effort to negate his foe’s standup attack.
Though Mason found his range in the second frame by working a stiff
double jab, it was Arish who looked fresher in the final frame, as
the man from Manchester walked through Mason’s punches to land
clean shots of his own en route to a unanimous judges’ verdict.